This Thing We Do: Coming Home
by freifraufischer
Summary: Romantic Snow Queen. Post-3.13. Missing Year. After the castle is retaken, Snow is desperate to confront Regina about the suicide note Charming found in her pack, and perhaps desperate to settle other things about her relationship with the Queen. The sixth story in the This Thing We Do series.


_Post 3.13 Flashbacks, Missing Year_

The Winter Palace was always dark and brooding. Snow never noticed it when she was a child, but looking back on it her mother had always hated the place. Her father thought the summer palace too homely, and he liked the view of the mountains and the lake better. There wasn't much of either of her parents there anymore she thought as she walked through the halls quickly. Regina. It was like the castle had been built for Regina despite its architect being one of Snow's distant ancestors.

She could hear Charming's footsteps behind her, but she was moving faster. She knew this castle better than anyone. Everyone else was milling around the great hall waiting for them to find the Queen. That's what they told everyone, because disclosing the note seemed to Snow a violation and David had agreed. She turned a hall into what she remembered as the Queen's chambers to see torches lit and Robin Hood standing nervously outside. Did Regina never move into the grand king's chambers after her father's death?

"Is she awake...?"

Snow demanded, less in her normal polite questioning voice but instead in the commanding voice of a princess she rarely used.

"She's fine m'lady. Or as fine as I think she likely ever is." He didn't mention the sleeping curse, "We encountered the Wicked Witch and the Queen insists on working on some sort of new protection spell for the castle."

"And you left her alone?"

"She rather insisted."

"I'm sure she did..." Snow growled and David actually tried to grab her arm to hold her back, "Don't push it Snow."

"The hell I'm not going to push it." She had Regina's note crumpled up in her hand as she pushed through the doors. The men, wisely, stayed in the hall. "What the hell did you think you were doing?"

Regina was in the great feathered dress that made her look like a vulture, "Not now Snow... I need to finish this."

"You need to explain this."

She was about to slam the note down on the table but looking at the complicated apparatus that Regina was working with Snow thought better.

"If you don't want my bastard sister to kill us all in our sleep, you'll let me do this now and yell at me later."

Snow blinked. "Sister?"

"So she says."

"But isn't the Wicked Witch green?"

"Very. Completely unflattering shade too, I don't know how she manages lipstick."

"Regina."

"Do I look like I have all the answers, Snow. Just let me deal with keeping her out."

Snow sighed, "Alright, but this... this isn't over." She waved the note again.

Regina looked up from where she was leaning over and caught Snow looking at her, not in the eyes, and smiled. Probably for the first time in days. "I'm sure it's not. Now go and make sure your friends don't decide spread straw on the flour and use our castle as a stable."

Snow shook her head, but was just relieved that Regina was alive. The thank you note had terrified her in ways she couldn't even explain to David, but he seemed at least willing to tolerate and not ask too deeply about.

Snow set about organizing the castle, directing people to various wings where she knew there were living quarters, and asking Granny if she wouldn't mind managing keeping people fed. She didn't have the heart to call them servants. But she supposed she would soon. This was after all home again, and they all had roles to play.

Grumpy and Happy were starting to take the Queen's banners down from the posts in the court yard, "No, stop." They were in mid-motion where they were. In fact just about everyone in the court yard stopped what they were doing and Snow realized she might have been a bit loud. "Those are Regina's Pennants."

"Yes, sister..." Grumpy said as if that was obvious.

"This is her castle. We're not replacing her."

Grumpy raised an eyebrow. "They stay." Snow said firmly and looked around at the people around her, most of them her closest friends. "Regina is family now. We're ruling together. The three of us. And I expect everyone to treat her with the respect of the Queen."

There was a bit of grumbling. "And if I hear anyone utter the word evil before that title, they will have more than a wicked witch to answer to. Am I clear?"

She was using what she thought of as her stern teacher voice, but it seemed to get the message across, both to the Storybrooke folk and to Robin Hood's men who had attached themselves to the party.

* * *

><p>Regina spent hours in the room before going out to the court yard and casting a new protection spell. It was almost morning when she came down to relight the fire of the protection spell. A ball forming in her hand she placed her hand into the caldron and the light burst forth forming a new bubble around the castle. She smiled and looked pleased with her work without noticing there was anyone else there beyond a few merry men who had decided to take up guard until the spell was up.<p>

"Now we can talk about this."

Snow's voice was firm as she came out of the shadows, and the merry men seemed to know when to disappear. Royals fighting was never something to be near, especially when one of them was a famous bandit and the other an evil queen.

"There isn't anything to talk about."

"Of course there is. You were going to kill yourself."

"No... I was ... going to curse myself." Both Snow's eyebrows came up and she grabbed hold of Regina's hand and guided her down the path towards where her apple tree had apparently reappeared where it belonged.

"A sleeping curse, so, what, Henry could wake you up? Or so that you could see him?"

Regina didn't answer. "You don't want to spend your eternity in fire, Regina."

"I'm the villain of the story, Snow. I'll end badly either way. And if I could see him..."

"He'd be horrified." Snow answered. She pulled her close and whispered in her ear. "Don't think you are escaping me that easily either. I have no intention of letting you go."

What had been a reassuring tone when it was possible others would over hear, turned into something else once Snow knew they were too far from the nearest ear. After all she knew this castle well and it's grounds. And where secrets could be told. There was a reason this was the queen's garden.

She released Regina from the hug. "You were doing such a good job of being a good girl, Regina." Snow felt the fire in her eyes, but instead of the anger that had possessed her back in Storybrooke there was possession now. The Queen was hers.

She pushed her into the shadows and pulled a hand up to hers to kiss.

"I can taste the magic on them."

"Careful, that could be residue of potion," Regina warned amused.

"You are going to be the Queen, and we're going to rule together."

"What about Charming."

"Charming makes a lovely chiseled jaw but he'll do what we want if we present a united front."

"And you don't think he'll figure it out?"

"This is a big castle, Regina. You hid the most amazing things from my father in these walls."

"I'm not your possession Snow."

"Of course not, we're each others. As we've always been." She smiled, "Though I will have to remember how to get past all of this armor again." Snow's hands slipped behind her divided skirts and rested on Regina's leather clad ass.

"That's assuming you ever knew how to find a way past my armor."

"I was a bandit, remember?"

She pulled at a draw string and loosened just enough to slip her hand down the front of the riding pants.

"Time and place?" Regina asked amused.

"Bandit's take what they want when they want it, my queen. That's why they're called bandits." Snow pressed two fingers against her. "Now, you aren't going to try anything like that again are you?" She actually gave Regina's clit a small pinch and was rewarded with Regina's entire body jumping a bit.

"Snow..."

"No Regina. You are not going to scare me like that again."

She pushed Regina so that the queen was leaning against a low stone wall and Snow could get a better angle as she moved her fingers past her clit and curled them up. Regina let a long grown.

"I'll take that as a yes for now." Snow gave her best attempt at an evil smile and began rubbing against her clit with her thumb, moving her fingers in and out just a little. It didn't take much after all. Size only mattered to men who didn't know how to use it. Snow smiled as Regina got off against her hand, "You are such a good Queen."

Regina smiled just a little sarcastically, but it was a weak effort and she leaned in to kiss her, it might have been hard and possessive had she had more energy. "I'm so tired."

"You've been through a lot this week." Snow remarked as she removed her hand and straightened Regina up.

"And I have to face those people tomorrow." She nodded up to the castle. "I'm not sure I could put up with dwarf whistling."

"They don't do quite as much of that as you might think. And besides, we all saw you save us all from Pan's Curse."

"I undid what I brought down on us Snow. That was not a heroic act."

Snow smiled, and felt like she was channeling Henry. "It was. You sacrificed for us all, and that makes you a hero. A twisted, bent and warped hero, but you've always been that to me."

"You are insane."

"You did call me a mad woman."

"I called myself mad, and asked what your excuse was."

"My excuse is that I'm in love with you Regina."

Regina froze, and released herself from Snow's grip. "You don't mean that. And neither of us has had enough sleep in the last few days."

Snow could see the walls go up higher than ever and she immediately regretted saying it. "Regina..."

"What are the sleeping arrangements?"

"What? You and Charming have taken over my castle."

"Our castle, Regina. We're not kicking you out of wherever you want to be."

"Then I will keep my old chambers." The Queen pronounced.

"Why did you never move into my father's?"

"I didn't like the view." Regina said sharply, and Snow realized she'd said yet another thing wrong tonight.

"I expect you at lunch tomorrow Regina. Not breakfast. You need the sleep."

"So do you."

"You aren't super human Regina. There is only so long you can stand before you fall."

"I have no intention of falling into your arms, Snow."

Snow smiled. "Perhaps no, but if you fall flat on your face in the great hall I will not be able to stop people from laughing."

Regina growled, but that just made Snow smile.

"You haven't won."

"Of course not." Snow smiled some more. The Queen started to walk back up the path out of the gardens, and Snow chased after a moment. "Regina..."

The queen turned imperiously. "What?"

"You don't have to say it back."

Regina watched her for a long moment before seeming satisfied and turned again to find her bed. And sleep for a week Snow guessed.

She made her way to the rooms she and David had picked out, also not her father's old rooms. He watched his wife as she started to undress.

"Regina?"

"Henry. She's thinking about Henry. Give her time and I think she'll find a way to be fine."

"Yes, but it's exactly what that way is that worries me."

Snow shook her head, "You have nothing to worry about on that account."

She smiled and crawled under the heavy blankets with him and slept for the first time in her own home.


End file.
